Gay College Student Forbidden From Having Girls in Her Dorm

A private dorm in Austin is under public scrutiny after a University of Texas student claimed they no longer allow her to have friends over because of her sexuality.

Kaj Baker has spent the first part of her freshman year of college living at Scottish Rite Dormitory, an off-campus women’s dorm intended for UT students in Austin. The week before Thanksgiving, she was called into a meeting with the dorm’s director, Mary Mazurek and the registrar, Meshelle Bourne.

Apparently some residents had complained that Baker’s girlfriend, Carlee, had spent some late nights studying with her in the lounge— something that, even according to Mazurek, did not actually break any of the dorm’s rules.

“We’re trying to make sure that everybody… all 315 residents are comfortable and sometimes it takes compromise on both sides to do that,” Mazurek told Baker, who recorded the conversation. When Baker asked why people are uncomfortable, she went on to clarify: “Because some people are not comfortable with your sexual orientation.”

Baker says she was ultimately told she couldn’t have any guests over for the rest of the semester, not just her girlfriend.

The dormitory’s current rules — for straight students, anyway — only allow male guests between 12pm and 10pm on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, but female guests are allowed at any time, including overnight.

“They told me that girls need to feel safe here, and I asked her if we made people feel unsafe. She said, ‘I'm not going there. I'm not going there just yet,’” Baker told CBS Austin, referring to Mazurek. “The list of complaints weren’t us doing anything wrong. We weren’t harming anyone. We weren’t doing PDA. We weren’t breaking any rules. It was us existing.”

Baker has been staying at her girlfriend’s apartment since the meeting.

“They’re saying, ‘Carlee is gay. She doesn’t belong there, so we’re not going to let her in the dorm.’ Well, I’m gay too. Do I not belong there?”